Posted
by
kdawson
on Friday March 12, 2010 @09:51AM
from the your-mileage-will-vary dept.

AnotherUsername writes "The Federal Communications Commission is asking the nation's broadband and smartphone users to use its broadband testing tools to help the feds and consumers know what speeds are actually available, not just promised by the nation's telecoms. At http://www.broadband.gov/, users enter their address and test their broadband download speed, upload speed, latency, and jitter using one of two tests (users can choose to test with the other after one test is complete). The FCC is requiring the street address, as it 'may use this data to analyze broadband quality and availability on a geographic basis' (they promise not to release location data except in the aggregate). The agency is also asking those who live in a broadband 'dead zone' to fill out a report online, call, fax, email, or even send a letter. The announcement comes just six days before the FCC presents the first ever national broadband plan to Congress. Java is necessary to run the test." Lauren Weinstein points out some of the limitations in the FCC's testing methodology.

I, on the other hand, am paying for a 6/1 business cable plan (Comcast), and according to this broadband test, I am getting anywhere between 15-20 meg down and a consistent 2.5 meg up, with 20 ms ping +/- 1ms. Makes sense to me since I have seen downloads hit 1.6 MB/sec before. I know some people get the shit end of the stick with cable but I seem to have lucked out here. I earned it after so many years spent at my old place, out in the country with nothing but dialup.

I am paying for 16/9 and getting 4/4. After repeatedly complaining, having them troubleshoot their hardware, et. Al, they have PROMISED to check the "neighborhood node", replace the immediate (in my neighbors back yard) node, as well as the routing servers, and given me $20/month credit for 6 months. Of course they haven't replace or repaired any of the nodes (the one in my neighbors yard looks like someone took a baseball bat to it), but I have received the credit. So I'm all for letting the FCC enforce

What do you need the FCC for? You can enforce the speeds yourself using existing mechanisms. Simply drag Comcast into court for "breach of contract". You might even be able to get a class-action suit for your local neighborhood where Cmcast was licensed.

Unfortunately you'd probably lose. Why? The contract you signed, if it looks like my contract, says "upto" a certain speed. Not a guarantee. Which means Comcast has done nothing w

"if it looks like my contract, says "upto" a certain speed. Not a guarantee"This is EXACTLY why the FCC is doing this in the first place. They're going to compare the advertised "up to" speed and see how often you can actually get that.

The problem with this test is that it only measures the speed for about 20 seconds. I have comcast which means "power boost" kicks in for about the first 30 seconds of your download, then you get normal speed, and then my speed seems to fucking tank on torrents after about

As often as cable modems break and cable networks switch IP addresses (unless you pay extra for the static IP) I pretty much fail to see how they'll build any reliable database from the cable side of things, as far as IP addresses are concerned (which are not reliable identifiers anyways.)

I'm on my 10th IP address in two days and my THIRD cable modem in two months, just to give you an indication.

Yes, this COULD be a scheme to get your personal information. I consider this to be unlikely, however, because they're ALREADY WIRETAPPING THE ENTIRE FUCKING COUNTRY. Then don't even need a warrant, they just need "probably cause" and to fill out a 1 page form to get any and all of your data from any ISP in the USA.

They don't need some new sneaky plan to get your data, they already have it.

Check the fine print. It's written in 1px tall letters, but not necessarily every available to you.

The advertised rate is the maximum data rate that would be possible with your account.

They may have the pipe between your house and their first pop at the advertised speeds, but that won't necessarily be available through their network. They cannot assert the reliability of any 3rd part web sites, nor connectivity on any network beyond their own.

Additionally, they probably don't (read: never) have enough capacity on their network to take 100% of advertised rate for all users simultaneously. Providers always oversell their bandwidth. They have since the dialup days. "Ok, we have 1,000 56k modems. Therefore we should have 56Mb/s available. Great, we'll run it over this T1, and blame line noise on their end for any slower speeds."

Bandwidth calculations for sales are very dependent on the fact that some of the customers will never use their service. Some will only use it intermittently. Those who use too much capacity will be throttled or cancelled.

When cable modems were first coming out, RoadRunner was using the same provider as my work. I could download stuff from work to home at 10Mb/s. That lasted for a few months, and then I suddenly found it capped at 3Mb/s. Ok, still, I'm happy, this was years ago and my other choice was a 56k modem. Then I found it capped at 1.5Mb/s. I was starting to get annoyed, so I called to complain. "My connection is getting slower and slower." They told me it couldn't have possibly been 10Mb/s, they never provisioned anything like that. Hmm. They also said the advertised rate of 3Mb/s is only a maximum. If other people in the area are using service at the same time as me, I should expect slower times. No one ever sees their maximum advertised throughput. If I'd like, I could upgrade to "Business" service for 10x as much, which has a higher advertised rate, but still does not have a guarantee for throughput. It's in the fine print, in the addendum that I wasn't provided a copy of. In the cellar. Behind the locked door marked "Beware the Leopard". In the disused lavatory. In the bottom drawer of a locked file cabinet. Clearly it was my fault for not understanding the terms of the contract, therefore I need to shut up and pay my bill like a happy little customer.

If I ran a dairy delivery, and I offered my customers "packages" of either "up to 2 pints of milk, up to 3 pints, or up to 4 pints", and then proceeded to deliver them 1 pint, 1 1/4 pints, or 1 1/2 pints, do you know what would happen? I'd be bitch slapped by the Trade Descriptions Act quicker than you can say "but did you read the fine print?". You're not allowed to offer something that you have no intention of delivering, and that's that.

It seems like the ISPs are in one of those strange legal loop-holes that so regularly plague the technology industries. It seems that the second someone introduces something "on a computer", the regulators completely lose their minds...

They can trace the IP, but it will lead them to your provider, not your house. I think the idea here is to learn about speed according to geographic location (i.e., neighborhood) rather than by provider.

They want to determine coverage. You cannot derive street-level coverage of broadband from IP addresses easily. As it stands, one of the problems with broadband is that you do not get universally consistent coverage, for example, at home, the 3/768 DSL offering of one of the CLEC's failed testing and they provisioned it for 1.5/512 instead. Had we been half a mile closer to the CO, 3/768 likely would have worked. There will be someone else a little further out who can only get it as 768/384.

The real problem will be for the FCC to get enough people to run this to get a meaningful map. I doubt that they'll get enough for it to really matter.

seeing as they don't ask for name or SSN or any other way of identifying you, it doesn't help whether they already have it or not. They need some way of tying results to location. If they asked for your name and phone number they could run it through the database they already have to determine your address as it is publicly known. but I think asking for that info would be worse. So they do the easiest thing and ask for address. Then they have a really easy job of tying results to location and the information you provided on its own is pretty harmless.

Come on, this is a chance for you to help the Government slam the telco's. Which many slashdotters have been asking for for ages. Do it.

I did it from work, but said I was doing it from home. Further, I entered an address of a home (not mine) in a rural area in my state that is currently trying to get federal stimulus money because they have no broadband.

I did it from work, but said I was doing it from home. Further, I entered an address of a home (not mine) in a rural area in my state that is currently trying to get federal stimulus money because they have no broadband.

So your goal to make sure they don't get any stimulus money for broadband by making it appear they do?

Anyways, it's hard to imagine they won't be discarding outliers, and (regardless of intentions) your dishonest result will be an outlier.

>>>So your goal to make sure they don't get any stimulus money for broadband by making it appear they do?

Our national debt is nearly $130,000 per American home* and projected by Obama's budget to increase +$10,000 more each year. We. Need. To Stop. Spending. Otherwise we'll have ~$200,000/home by the end of this decade, and all go bankrupt. As Cosby might say, "C'mon people! This isn't hard to figure out."

- Congress should mandate with a simple law that the telephone company must provide DSL to any customer requests it (within six months). The twisted-pair lines are already there, except for the need to add a neighborhood DSLAM. If Verizon/ATT/whoever balk about expense, simply point to the billions they received circa 1996 and say "use that". Actually the expense should be quite low to upgrade existing phone lines to DSL lines.

So you're proposing that instead of the taxpayer paying for it via taxes, the customers will pay for it via price increases handed down by the providers to cover the extra costs?

So it's OK for everyone to pay for it as long as it's not called taxes? Brilliant.

I believe his point was that the federal government is at the moment not capable of paying for ANYTHING. So yeah a consumer that wishes to have broadband paying for the service is preferable to the government borrowing more money to pay for something they wouldn't implement correctly anyway.

So you're proposing that instead of the taxpayer paying for it via taxes, the customers will pay for it via price increases handed down by the providers to cover the extra costs?

So it's OK for everyone to pay for it as long as it's not called taxes? Brilliant.

As much as you aimed that comment sarcastically, you are right on the money. Think of it as paying for something you actually use and is meaningful to you. Rather then paying for a service that you didn't use, but instead someone got to use.

Or to put it another way. Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can sit in your parents basement getting high scores on Call of Duty since you have virtually no lag time thanks to my taxes?

Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can go to the library and read books thanks to my taxes? I only buy books - I have no need for a library.

Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can drive on improved roads thanks to my taxes? I work from home and have a big car - I have no need for pothole-free roads.

Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can send your child to a school funded by my taxes? I have no children, and if I did they would go to a private school.

Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can be assured of eating safe food, thanks to the FDA's use of my taxes? I have my own farm - I have no need for food regulation.

Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can get medicare thanks to my taxes?Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can be safe thanks to the military funded by my taxes?Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can drink soda made from HFCS, subsidized by my taxes?Why should I work for 60 hours a week busting my rear so that you can have onion routing, thanks to DARPA funded by my taxes?

That's exactly why you bust your butt for 60 hours a week. You do it so that he sits in his parent's basement and gets high scores on Call of Duty instead of going out and mugging you in Central Park. Every large society is going to have some dead weight. It is a problem that cannot be ignored. Either you provide social services for the dead weight, or the dead weight turns to crime, or you euthanize the dead weight. Personally, I hate crime and I don't want to even think about the moral and procedural issues of deciding who gets to live. Thus, I pay my taxes. I don't like it, but it's the only solution we have that works.

- Congress should mandate with a simple law that the telephone company must provide DSL to any customer requests it (within six months). The twisted-pair lines are already there, except for the need to add a neighborhood DSLAM. If Verizon/ATT/whoever balk about expense, simply point to the billions they received circa 1996 and say "use that". Actually the expense should be quite low to upgrade existing phone lines to DSL lines.

So you're proposing that instead of the taxpayer paying for it via taxes, the customers will pay for it via price increases handed down by the providers to cover the extra costs?

So it's OK for everyone to pay for it as long as it's not called taxes? Brilliant.

Did you even read what he said? We ALREADY paid for it with our taxes in the 90s, instead of building out broadband THEY STOLE THE MONEY.

Might be handy to look up national debt as a percentage of GDP. From historical experience, where we are now is far from untenable--and Bush's tax cuts cost us a great deal more, in terms of the deficit, than Obama's budget.

Relax the "zomg deficit spending is teh baaaad" meme until we're out of the recession/under 10% unemployment, mkay?

Under Obama's existing and projected budget, the debt increased by about $25 trillion during 2009, $15 trillion in 2010, and $10 trillion for the years 2011, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Look up Obama's budget - it's there in plain balck and white.

Yes--due largely to the unfunded liabilities that the Bush administration incurred before Obama even took office. See also: Medicare part D, estate tax repeal, Bush's tax cuts for the top 1%. Their full cost is playing out *now*.

And you're assigning a numerical value per household, which is at best tangential to the issue of the debt/GDP ratio. See here [nytimes.com] and the plots here [nytimes.com].

I agree that cutting taxes on the rich didn't help, but the only REAL solution is to raise taxes on the people who currently aren't paying any, cut spending (entitlements), and stop the pork barrel spending.

Because the lowest 20% have *so* much leftover income to contribute to taxes. And "pork barrel spending" comprises less than 1% of the Federal budget. Most goes to entitlements and defense--and entitlement spending, namely Medicare, is growing because our health costs are twice as much per-capita as nations with universal healthcare.

Of course Obama's Health Care reform isn't really about Health Care, it is about creating another bankrupt entitlement, and passing the debt off to our children.

Except for the part where it reduces the deficit in the next decade per the CBO, and reduces the deficit still *more* for the decade after. And so on.

PEOPLE do you not realize that you're selling your children into slavery? And it isn't just the USA that is facing this problem, it is happening all across the world.

Windows firewall pops up a warning in the middle of the test, which will likely mess up the results since it will cause a delay. Not sure I like unblocking an application that the government is sponsoring either.

If you don't like the idea of a government-sponsored network testing application accessing the network why would you even bother to download and execute it?

The activities of any network speed tester should attract the attention of a competent firewall, since they will necessarily involve doing some uploading and downloading. If this makes you nervous, just don't execute the code(or, if you have the java chops, examine it first and make sure that the filler data used for the upload portion of the test is

You (and others) seemed to have taken my words a bit out of context. I ran the program, then reblocked the ports. I'm not paranoid about the 'gubmint being out to get me', but I think anyone with any sense of history knows that it is always best to be a bit leery when it comes to governments, which are typically run by people who enjoy power. This is the same government who approved the DCMA, software patents, and the Patriot Act. My sense of "liberty" is obviously not the same as most elected politicia

In contrast to the government I have no personal reason to distrust Comcast, never having had any dealings with them (and not crediting Slashdot rants about how evil they are). However, trust is not necessary. Both are often quite predictable and in this case the chance that the FCC is hiding something nefarious in this test is so small as to provoke laughter at those who are worried about it.

An iPhone (yes there's an iPhone app) test and a laptop test on the same wifi reported wildly different numbers.

Selecting a server 800 miles away rather than the one in the same city yielded much improved numbers (by whole number multiples).

Speedtest.net already has an extensive database, and appears to be part of the backend of this. It's too bad the FCC couldn't have just handed them a small pile of cash to summarize the existing data, which would probably have been better at rapidly producing results.

This is the same administration that sent us all mail to tell us that they will be sending us mail in the near future. Not exactly surprising when they reinvent another wheel, even if it's another agency this time.

This "test" is typical of government programs. Expensive, doesn't work right, and ends-up not fulfilling its promises.

Remember EZpass in 2000? When I signed-up the government told me it would save time and money. Instead of $1 for a toll, I paid 90 cents, which saved a lot of cash over a month's time. Then in 2005 they eliminated the savings, but I kept the EZpass for convenience. And now in 2010 they want me to PAY $20 more each year than the cash drivers. I'm getting rid of my EZpass. It's typical

Don't forget about instances where a toll in instituted to pay for the road. Once the road is paid for, the toll is continued because the budget now depends on it. I know it happened in New Orleans, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the only place where that has happened.

Could you imagine the outcry among speedtest users if speedtest gave information to the gov't for this? It would damage their reputation, and it would damage the FCC's reputation as well for collecting data through a back-channel rather than through request. This isn't even weighing in speedtest's privacy policy and the fact that ISPs have already optimised their burst performance around benchmarks like speedtest.

I've tried the numerous broadband speed testers out there. Depending on where they are and who they are I have received results as low as 1/5th my actual bandwidth to twice as much. Sometimes I wondered if they were really trying at all. I generally judge my downstream on an average of what I get when I do an aptitude update ; aptitude upgrade as it seems to be inline with my actual advertised speeds. As far as downstream, I use my machine via SSH daily and the speeds I get through that. Pretty consistent.

This test was pretty much dead on accurate. I was 9993/975 (I have 10/1). The test was painless, easy, and the only thing I didn't particularly care for was the fact that they wanted your exact address. Wouldn't a simple portion of your address work well enough (e.g. 1xx Main St 90210) instead of the entire thing? Even if they were looking to aggregate the information by Zip+4 that should be enough, right? Who needs it any lower than that?

The frist test I got said it was Ookla then I could try M-Lab but at the end of the supposed M-Lab test the results page said it was Ookla and I could now try M-Lab. Also needed to hit the "start test" button twice in each case. Still some bugs to work out before the program really starts up in 5 days.

Given the reference to a "broadband dead zone" in the summary, I imagine that this, combined with the census, will be used as justification for a communications counterpart to the late 1930s rural electrification project that made up part of President FDR's New Deal.

Give this man a cookie. In 1994 the REA was abolished and replaced with the Rural Utilities Service. They are most definately trying to justify their existence by trying to be involved in Federal broadband initiatives.

Admittedly, it's 6:30 in the morning, when most of the apartment complex in San Diego (UTC area, 92122) is still asleep. Nonetheless, for basic high speed from Time Warner Cable, I'm quite surprised by the speed. I've always been happy with the speed they provide, but I didn't realize that it would burst so high. Of course, other than broadband.gov no one is pushing data down my connection at those speeds anyways.

This is a waste of time, and simply another one in the current Democratic FCC's array of disappointments. This kind of voluntary speed test information gathering is worthless, since there's no way to vet the contributors' address claims. It's really just for show, just like the rest of the FCC's attempts to regulate.

The problem right now is the FCC's policies, and from what I've heard its upcoming National Broadband Plan, are wimpy, non-confrontational, and will do nothing to change the status quo in th

This site doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence in the government's plan for national broadband. First the site has difficulty loading, it took a few minutes before I got in. So I try the test and Firefox locks up. Eventually I get an unresponsive script warning.

I find it odd that, after the FCC has spent tens of billions of dollars promoting and installing broadband as a social service, they are now doing a study of who has broadband and where. It is almost as if they have been putting policy before the facts, a common Washington fault.

Surely, those Net Admins at Comcast will be looking at this and figuring out where the test is connecting to, and then modifying their configurations so that their filtering/slowdown settings do not interfere with a users ability to get FULL speed just to the testing site.

Surely, those Net Admins at Comcast will be looking at this and figuring out where the test is connecting to, and then modifying their configurations so that their filtering/slowdown settings do not interfere with a users ability to get FULL speed just to the testing site.

Now, to figure out how to use broadband.gov as a proxy..

Well all you have to do is to hack into the website and install your own proxy software. Then shortly after that you will find that all your broadband speed issues have disappeared - along with a few other things of course.